The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  He wasn’t the only one. The acrid bite of burning wood and synthetic materials now mixed with the earlier odors in the basement and wafted through on a thin layer of smokiness.

  “Seems a bit strong to be someone’s fireplace,” I observed.

  Suddenly, the piercing wail of a smoke detector lanced its way through the basement from the direction of the stairs.

  “Holy Jesus, Mary Mother of God,” Deckert muttered.

  Ben skipped past any semblance of muttering and went directly to exclamations. “Sonofabitch!”

  He was already moving when he bellowed the expletive, hooking around me and heading for the stairs. Deckert and I followed close on his heels.

  This particular staircase was positioned such that it formed a steep angle diagonally against the far wall. Due to the structural design of the foundation, in order to keep that angle from being far too oblique, it reached a small landing near the bottom, then made a ninety-degree turn, and continued down for another short flight of steps. The stairwell, in and of itself, had been a part of the remodeling project and was now enclosed by thin sheets of paneling applied directly to the wooden studs.

  Ben was several steps ahead of us and hit the bottom stair at full speed, launching himself past the other two and onto the landing. By the time we reached the opening, we could hear him bounding upward and coughing violently.

  Deckert urged me ahead, and I stumbled for a moment, raking my shin against the edge of the stair. I groped for a handrail and found none, so I pushed off and started upward again, ignoring the pain in my lower leg. As I hit the landing with the older detective puffing hard behind me, I made the turn and was immediately enveloped in a thick haze of smoke.

  The detector in the stairwell was still screaming at full volume, echoing from the paneled walls and drilling an intense pain deep in my ears.

  The cloud of smoke was increasing at an alarming rate, and it easily began to overtake the narrow space as it billowed in from beneath the door. I came to a sudden halt as my eyes began to water and burn. Partially blinded, I held my arms outstretched, trying to feel my way up the staircase, and lurched forward.

  My heart was racing, and I involuntarily sucked in a deep breath of the polluted atmosphere then immediately hacked it outward, sputtering and choking as I fell once again on the stairs. I could hear Ben up ahead of me barking out his shallow breaths and then the heavy sound of a body against solid wood as he threw his weight against the door. The thud was followed by my friend’s choking voice. “Owwww! Shit! Jeezus! Goddammit!”

  I pulled the neck of my shirt up over my nose and mouth and dragged myself upward. Deckert was immediately to my rear, and he grabbed my arm in an attempt to help me up, but he was already breathing so hard when we hit the landing that the sudden rush of smoke was taking a far quicker toll on him.

  The din of the fire was echoing from the walls, and dangerous sounding creaks and groans were now beginning to insinuate themselves into the fray.

  I squinted hard in the darkness of the thickening atmosphere and saw a pinpoint of reddish-orange appear above me. It started to grow, and I realized that I was standing directly beneath it. I threw myself backwards, barreling into Deckert, and propelling us both into the wall at the bottom of the landing. The slab of paneling that angled up over the stairs suddenly erupted as flames ate through, fed by the noxious gases the treated laminate was expelling. The smoke detector began to warble sickly as the blaze lapped at it with an arcing fan of orange. A moment later, there was a loud snap followed by a crash as the sheet of paneling broke apart and fell across the stairs.

  Bright orange light illuminated the cloud of smoke in the stairwell as the roar of the conflagration announced its arrival. I thought I could see the silhouette of my friend moving at the top of the stairs. I started upward amid the rush of heat and began kicking the flaming pieces of pressboard off to the sides in order to make a path.

  I was still working at the task when he started down through the maelstrom. My ears were met by the cacophony of a repetitive thump, and before I could look up, I collided with my friend.

  “Down!” he croaked, grabbing me by the shoulder and twisting me around. “Back down!”

  I pushed forward, taking hold of Deckert’s arm as I went and pulling him back down the stairwell with me. The three of us stumbled back into the basement hacking and gulping at the less tainted air. I looked back and could see the smoke now curling along the ceiling at the mouth of the stairs, stretching grey tendrils to undulate languidly along the acoustic tiles. The paneled wall along the stairs was starting to bow and discolor, and in the amount of time it took me to suck in another breath, yellow flame began to pry open the seams.

  “It’s fuckin’ blocked or somethin!” Ben sputtered the words and then coughed hard before continuing his frenzied explanation. “I couldn’t budge it. Besides that, it’s hotter than hell.”

  “There’s got to be another exit,” I appealed.

  “In the back,” Deckert wheezed. He had lost his hat in the rush, and his hair was sticking out in disarray. He seemed to be having even more trouble breathing than Ben or me, and he was fingering his tie in an attempt to loosen it.

  “Carl, are you okay?” I reached over and worked the knot loose for him as I stared into his face.

  He managed to spit out a response. “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay.”

  He was lying. His face was pale, and I could see that his left hand was clenched into a fist.

  “Come on,” Ben urged, hooking a hand under one of Deckert’s arms as I took hold of the other. “We gotta get outta here before…”

  The fluorescent fixtures in the ceiling buzzed loudly and immediately doused, throwing us into almost complete darkness. The smoke was now rolling into the room behind us, and it was no longer content with hanging in wispy cloudlike formations around the ceiling. It had taken on a life of its own, and it was intent on filling the room to capacity with its airborne virulence.

  A wave of heat was pushing through the room, chasing away the earlier frosty atmosphere that had plagued me. We started forward across the darkened basement, aiming for the dim light of the doorway some forty feet away. We had taken three steps when from behind us there came a noise unlike any I’d ever heard.

  The initial sound hammered into my ears and drove directly into my skull, jarring every bone in my body. It was followed immediately by a dull roar that swelled in pitch to a persistent ring, all underscored by my ears feeling as if they were full of water.

  I remember being lifted off my feet and flying forward through the air, only to be deposited onto the plywood sub-floor a pair of yards from my original position. My face did a quick double bounce from the hard surface, and my arm twisted as it folded beneath me, driving a harpoon of pain into my already tortured shoulder.

  I groaned and rolled to the side then began pushing myself upward. An out-of-control spill of orange flame rolled down the stairs and waved its angry arms upward, instantly igniting the rectangular foam ceiling tiles. Black smoke from the burning polymers joined its dingy grey sibling to push deeper into the room, at the same time adding a layer of toxic fumes to the haze.

  “Ben?! Carl?!” I could hear myself inside my head, but to my ears, the words were a muffled tangle of syllables.

  My friend was already dragging himself upward, but Carl was motionless between us. I struggled to my feet and stumbled for a moment. I touched my face, and it felt sticky. My nose and cheek were aching, and my shoulder felt like it had just gotten in the way of a freight train.

  I don’t know that Ben could hear me any more than I could hear him. His lips were moving, and I thought I could pick out something resembling his voice. In any event, we both took hold of Deckert and pulled him to his feet. We half dragged him toward the doorway as he began to come to then he started moving with us as we rushed for the opening.

  I cast a glance over my shoulder and saw that the wall along the stairwell had already begun to collapse, bringin
g the melting tiles and grid work of the drop ceiling with it. The flames were arcing in violent bursts, swinging monkeylike from panel to panel as they consumed anything they touched. When I returned my gaze forward, I realized that it had crowned over us in the open space above the tiles and was now burning through in our path.

  Directly in front of me, a molten dollop of foam ceiling tile dripped to the floor, pulling a stream of flame with it. I shifted hard to the right, slamming once again into Carl and pushing him into Ben. We careened around the synthetic lava flow and slammed against the wall then ricocheted back onto a zigzagging course and covered the last few feet to the doorway.

  The ringing in my ears had subsided to a low whistle, and I could now hear the roar of the holocaust around us. Ben shoved Deckert through the opening then clamped his hand on my shoulder and pushed me in. The plywood sub-floor had ended at the threshold and dropped a few inches to the original concrete, so I tripped as I went through. Ben followed and faltered as well.

  The smoke was now hanging in the entire basement from the waist up, and we were hunched over in search of cooler, cleaner air. The only source of light in the room, other than that of the flames behind us, was a small, glass block window above us at ground level.

  We began scanning the room with frantic urgency, battling the thickening smoke for visibility. The caustic fumes were beginning to overtake us, and each breath was coming at an even higher cost.

  “Where’s the door?!” I heard Ben almost scream the question. “Where the fuck’s the door?!”

  CHAPTER 16:

  Angry flames had all but caught up to us, casting sharp fingers of orange past the doorframe. The fire had become a hungry cat, and the three of us were mice cowering in a hole. I searched for a door to close on the opening and found only bare hinges where it had been removed. I jumped and backpedaled to the center of the room as the claws of the monster made a desperate grab for me, singeing my hair in the process. For a moment, the arc of the blaze retreated as if it had been sucked back into the realm of hell from which it had originated. Unfortunately, as with any storm, it was merely a false calm. The pause lasted no more than a breath before a second explosion rattled through from the opposite end of the house, forcing a blast of flame, heat, and burning debris in upon us.

  We danced about, avoiding the flying detritus as best we could. All the while, we were struggling for each and every breath as a fresh supply of smoke billowed into the room. Carl hit the floor with a heavy thud, and I rushed over. He was kneeling, and I came down even with him. Although my eyes were burning and blurred, I could still see that he was looking worse by the moment.

  “How are you doing, Carl?” I felt myself yelling just to be heard through the thickness in my own ears.

  “Goddamn… Chest… Fricking… Killing… Me…” He wheezed in a breath between each word.

  I wasn’t qualified to make a diagnosis by any means, but I’d seen this before, and the only thing that entered my mind was heart attack. I didn’t say it aloud, but I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was thinking the same thing.

  “Do you have a handkerchief?” I raised my voice once again.

  He nodded and began trying to reach into his pocket. I took over and rummaged through his coat until I found the large cotton square. I gave it a quick fold then pressed it over his nose and mouth.

  “Breathe through this,” I instructed him. “And try to relax. We’re going to get out of here.”

  He pressed his right hand up over the makeshift mask and nodded.

  I climbed to my feet and began feeling my way clockwise around the room, keeping as low as I could in search of breathable air. I still had my shirt pulled up over the lower half of my face, but it was being overwhelmed by the ash content of the atmosphere. I could see that Ben was moving on the other side of the room, engaged in the same search from the opposite direction.

  “Back wall,” Deckert croaked, barely audible over the din of the fire.

  “Where?!” Ben screamed.

  Deckert motioned with his right arm as he sputtered and coughed, repeating, “Back wall.”

  I tried to move quickly in the direction he had indicated and nearly fell as I bounced from a stack of boxes. I was almost reduced to being on my hands and knees, so I sucked in a halting breath then half stood before propelling myself forward. I made it three steps before hammering face first into something that felt cold and metallic. I let out a yelp as my forward motion was immediately impeded and the air forced from my lungs. I groped through the harsh smoke, feeling my way in the darkness as I lowered myself down to the floor. I blinked hard and gulped in a breath, holding my hand against the metal for fear of losing it. I was just getting ready to yell that I had found the door when my eyes focused on the old refrigerator to which my hand was plastered.

  “Over here!” Ben’s strained voice pierced through the roar.

  “Where?!” I screamed out in return.

  “On your right!” came his reply.

  I twisted my head and could see him kneeling down next to the wall. On my hands and knees, I scrambled across the concrete floor toward him. Carl was still several feet away, and though he was still kneeling, I could see that he had propped himself against the waste pipe that jutted upward from the floor in the center of the room.

  Before I reached my friend, he had gulped in a fresh breath of air and was now standing again. I could hear him thumping against the door, the hammering noises coming as punctuation to the high-pitched groan as yet another section of the drop ceiling grid crashed to the floor in the next room.

  Ben dropped back down beneath the billowing haze. His face was smeared with soot, and his lower lip was bleeding. I struggled to focus on him and suddenly realized that my glasses were missing. Still, even with that handicap, I saw what could only be fear in his dark eyes.

  “Metal door with a deadbolt,” he told me, his voice hoarse but raised in order to compete with the conflagration. “Fuckin’ keyed on both sides.”

  Keyed on both sides; that was definitely not the kind of news I was wanting to hear. There was no way to open the door, and finding a key in this holocaust was unthinkable even if there was one to be found.

  “What are we going to do?” I screamed the question, unable to keep the terror out of my voice. “Can’t you shoot it or something?!”

  “This ain’t a goddamn movie, Rowan!”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  Desperation, the greatest motivator of all, overtook Ben and became the deciding factor. With it as an impetus, it took him less than a second to seriously consider my idea. He clutched my shoulder and pushed me away as he ordered, “Move back! Get outta the way!”

  I followed his instruction as if I had any choice, dragging myself backward as quickly as I could. As I watched, he reached inside his coat then withdrew his hand. In it was clutched a nine-millimeter Beretta.

  “This is gonna be loud,” he screamed at me. “Cover your face ‘cause shit’s gonna fly!”

  With the instruction given, he stood and felt about on the door for a moment. I watched the blurry scene playing out before me, as he settled on a spot then raised the handgun until it disappeared into the thick haze of smoke. I saw his legs move as he took a measured step backward.

  A bright flash of yellow-white erupted within the billowing cloud, coupled with a sharp sound of the muzzle report as it echoed from the walls. My ears popped and filled once again, feeling as though they’d been punctured by ice picks, and then a tinny ring settled in for good measure.

  At the same instant, something hard, hot, and sharp hit my cheek and sent a sting through it. I reached up and felt it protruding from the skin, and even more blood began to run in a warm rivulet across my face. My arm automatically flew over my eyes just as the next flash of light and controlled explosion made themselves known. The second was followed by a third and that by a fourth. By the time Ben had snapped off the sixteenth and final round from the semi-automatic pistol
, the sound seemed to me to be no louder than the pop of someone clapping hands.

  I peeked out from beneath my arm and saw that a small shaft of light was streaming in to illuminate the cloud of smoke. Ben dropped himself downward and wheezed in a deep breath. As he came fully into my field of vision, I could see that his hands and face were cut and bloodied from the blowback of the shrapnel.

  I couldn’t hear him, but I could see him laboring for a breath as he moved himself to the door. The shaft of light flickered as he reached up and tugged at the barrier. It didn’t budge.

  My heart fell, and the acidic bite of terror forced its bitter taste upon the back of my tongue. A gelid finger ran up my spine before chilling the back of my brain, and I swore I heard the sigh of the Dark Mother calling me. In the front of my mind, I saw my wife’s tense face and clearly heard the echo of her voice, “Aye, go. You go, but you’d best come back.”

  I continued to watch as my friend worked his finger into the hole and then seemed to struggle with it for a moment. His hand jerked as if something had given way, and he pulled hard.

  Suddenly, he fell back, and the door swung inward allowing the light to grow from a small shaft to an enormous beam. Coldness spilled in across the floor, and the smoke punched upward for a second then began rushing outward through the opening as more flowed in from behind. Fresh air hit us low, and we gulped at it as we crawled across the floor. Unfortunately, it also provided a new source of oxygen for the insane combustion behind us.

  The orange flames that had been clawing at the doorway now paled to a bright yellow as they expanded. The wooden doorframe that had until this point only charred and smoldered now offered itself up for sacrifice as fully involved fuel. In an instant, the remaining bits and pieces of drop ceiling crashed downward and swung in through the blaze-encircled opening.

  I scrambled up from the floor, making a half step-half leap into the space between Deckert and me in the process. He was still leaning against the waste pipe but was now slumped and unresponsive to his surroundings. I covered the short distance fast, but the flaming debris had a head start.